The classic television series Star Trek opened with a voice over from William Shatner, ‘Space, the final frontier’. Today, with the advent and progress of the World Wide Web, we are confronted with a new frontier; one which equally presents us with ‘strange new worlds and new civilizations’ to explore. In my first article in this journal, ‘Unravelling the Mystery: The Net for New Testament Scholars’, I tried to provide a tool for New Testament research with links to several helpful web sites. Similarly, in this piece I aim to introduce readers to sites that may supply interesting information for the spiritual pilgrimage.
Scott Thumma, in a recent article
entitled ‘Walking
in the Cyberspace Labyrinth’,
suggested that the ‘discipline of exploring the Internet
can take on a spiritual dimension…. [and] can be understood,
at least at times, in the ancient terms of "spiritual journey",
"quest", and even "pilgrimage".’ Much
has been made of this interface between the faith journey and
the opportunities afforded by this new technology. One need only
look at the collection of linked articles on the subject in John
L. Gresham’s site A
Guide to Religious Studies Resources on the Internet.
One of the more important links here is that to Debbie Herring’s
Cybertheology, which
seeks to explore the study of theology ‘in, of and for cyberspace’.
Likewise, one should not overlook the provocative contributions
by Dr. Robert Fowler concerning the impact of the Internet on
the reading of Scripture: ‘The
Fate of the Notion of Canon in the Electronic Age’ and
‘How
the Secondary Orality of the Electronic Age Can Awaken Us to
the Primary Orality of Antiquity or What Hypertext Can Teach
Us About the Bible with Reflections on the Ethical and Political
Issues of the Electronic Frontier’. However, aside
from these and the many other scholarly discussions we need to
be aware that for many people of faith the Web has become a place
to seek, if not God per se, then some spiritual dimension to
life. Believers from every faith and/or denomination are rushing
online to debate theology, commune with kindred souls, and evangelise
the unchurched. The student of religion, as indeed the
religious pilgrim, is thus provided with ready access to a whole
spiritual bazaar of discussion groups, online communities, newsgroups,
and libraries of sacred texts. Below are some of the more
intriguing sites worth a visit.
No
pilgrimage is complete without a trip to the Vatican.
This professionally designed site affords the visitor a fully
searchable access to news and views from the Popes and the Roman
Curia, with links to the Vatican museums and libraries.
* The pilgrim
student of the humanities might wish to peruse the great works
of antiquity from the comfort of his or her office chair.
The Web grants such a person ready access to the Dead
Sea Scrolls of the Qumran Library, the complete works of
Josephus, the literature
of the Ancient
Roman Empire
or, more broadly, the well-constructed Perseus Project at Tufts
University supplies an ever-growing list of links to literature
of the Greco-Roman world. Of particular value to the Christian
pilgrim is the Wheaton University
Classics,
which brings together links to all of the classical Christian
authors whose works have been published online. All the
works with hyperlinks on the latter site are in the public domain
and can be downloaded freely. Those interested in medieval
texts should drop in on The
Ecole Initiative
or the DScriptorium.
* Marian shrines have long been destinations for intrepid pilgrims, and the Web houses some beautifully presented overviews of some of the more popular. One can directly access the WebPages for the shines at Knock in County Mayo, Ireland, Lourdes in France, and Medjugorje in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Or one may visit Moreprayers.com with its guide the Marion Shines of the World, which provides links to information on all three.
* Traditionally, pilgrims would break their journeys with sojourns at the various hostels run by the great religious orders. So too, on the Web one can find the virtual monasteries of the Benedictines and Carmelites, where one might learn about their respective histories, read about their lifestyles, and meditate on the daily reflections provided. Similarly, the mendicant Dominicans and Franciscans have established their own domains on the internet. The Jesuits boast a host of sites, which can be found via the Jesuit Global Navigator. But the best site for would-be armchair pilgrim is probably that of the Irish Jesuits, whose Sacred Space provides opportunity to reflect and pray while surfing the net. The diverse range of religious orders for women have co-operated to bring together in dialogue members and friends of their orders at the SisterSite, which is a must-see for anyone interested in the ‘history and contemporary concerns of women religious’.
*
One
of the primary purposes of the pilgrim is to broaden his or her
mind, to be open to new adventures in spirituality. By
its very nature, the internet provides a forum for many new religious
movements that challenge our old sensibilities and ask us to
rethink our notions of God and the religious quest. The
University of Virginia has established a website to chart the
advent and progress of new religious
movements,
which makes a good launch pad for further enquiry. But one should
not pass through Cyberspace without checking out ReligiousTolerance.org, which
gives information on and links to the wide variety of religious
expression. Some of the other interesting ventures into
virtual religion include The First Church of Cyberspace, United
Communities of the Spirit,
First
Electronic Church of America; CyberSpirituality, and Digitalism.
* Finally, one must always find time for the wonderfully crazy on the journey to the cyber shrines. In the spirit of Geoffrey Chaucer, whose Canterbury Tales captured the humorous elements of the Medieval pilgrimage I direct your attention to a few of the more satirical religious sites available on the Web: the Miraculous Winking Jesus; The Church of the Gerbil; The First Presbyterian Church of Elvis the Divine; and The Virtual Church of the Divine Chihuahua.
The internet is a wonderfully
anarchic and chaotic universe in which to travel, and it is growing
exponentially. Both the technology that supports it and
the population that makes use of it is constantly growing and
developing. In January 1990, there were around 3.4 million
people using some form of CMC. According to the most recent figures
(January 2003) supplied by the Global Internet Statistics, there
are now about 619 million people regularly surfing the World
Wide Web. In June 1993, there were a total of 130 websites.
Today, the largest search engine Google claims to ‘search’
some 3,083 million websites and pages. This surprising growth
is due to the fact that while the first cyber surfers were military
researchers, scientists, and academics, the domestic market now
accounts for the vast majority of internet use. Anyone with a
computer equipped with a modem and connected to a phone line
can publish online, interact in chat rooms, and exchange files
through email.
Accordingly, the increasing use of this computer mediated communication (CMC) is challenging the modern practice of religious community life. Indeed, computer mediated communication is changing the very way we conceive ‘community’. Where once a community was defined primarily by geographical proximity and physical interaction, an internet community (eg. newsgroup, discussion board contributors, or chat room regulars) has only a virtual reality, which is demarcated purely by the exchange of ideas and information. This is not to say that there may be other features that both types of community (physical and virtual) have in common, a shared history or tradition, rituals, and a distinctive language. Every community develops its own culture. But the basic assertion holds true – virtual communities have fewer boundary markers to delineate membership and control social/intellectual interaction.
This freedom can be liberating.
Where once we had to decamp and travel the world on a spiritual
quest for enlightenment, we can now explore our own religious
traditions, engage the traditions of others, access the libraries
of the ancient world, visit religious shines, and laugh at the
odd page of satire encountered on the quest. Our pilgrimage
has taken us far a field, from the hallowed halls of the Vatican
to the not-so-holy pews of the Virtual Church of the Divine Chihuahua.
But this only scratches the surface. There are still many
more ‘strange new worlds and new civilisations’ to
be visited and enjoyed, and I encourage you ‘to boldly go’
on your own spiritual quest.
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